


Protect and Serve

by LittleSammy



Category: NCIS
Genre: Anger, Episode Tag, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-13
Updated: 2013-04-13
Packaged: 2017-12-08 09:48:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/759985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleSammy/pseuds/LittleSammy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're both just doing it for her, really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Protect and Serve

**Author's Note:**

> Episode tag to episode 10x20 "Chasing Ghosts" and thus, spoilers. Otherwise - strong emotions ahead.

She ran into him while he was going for coffee again. This time he had to settle for the crappy break room coffee. The vendor outside had long gone home, despite the fact that some people in this building still went about their day jobs. Or, well, night jobs, as it was.

She froze when she saw him, as if she had bumped into him physically, and Tony wasn't sure why she suddenly looked like the deer-in-headlights cliché. Maybe because that was the first time they were alone since he had uncovered her deep, dark secret. Maybe because she had some more of those stacked away for a rainy day. He blinked and poured coffee and tried not to think about that too closely, because if he did that now, he would flip his shit and yell at her, and that would be kind of counterproductive if he had to basically live with her for a while.

"Isn't it a little late for coffee?" she said eventually, her voice quiet and almost hesitant. He hated to hear her like that. "With a flight that early?"

He turned to look at her, and yeah, while he leaned back against the countertop in a deceptively non-threatening way, her eyes were all over the place and evading his. They had played that particular game for the better part of the day. "Yeah, well," he shrugged eventually. "Figured I'd sleep on the plane and go through some stuff tonight that can't wait until I'm back. Whenever that will be."

And there it was again, the same nervous tension he'd seen rippling through her many times during this day. Her eyes got even more shifty for a second, and her pretty mouth twitched, lips parted, then closed again without a single sound uttered. The hunt for words ended in a sideways glance at him underneath long lashes and a dive for the snack machine when she didn't really need chocolate.

"I know Gibbs said to take you," she pressed out while her quarters fell down the slot with a deafening sound, "but you don't... have to..."

"What, and miss a round trip to Europe? Are you kidding me?"

More tension in her jaw, eerily illuminated by the cold light from deep within the bowels of the vending machine. Her hand was flat against the glass now, her fingertips twitching minutely, and he _knew_ that any second now, she would tell him again to just let her do her thing and best let her do it alone. And no. Just, no. Not this time.

She jerked in surprise and turned when he moved towards her, crowded her while her back was against the machine. The pulse in her throat jumped while she still tried to avoid his gaze and failed miserably, now that he was almost touching her.

"Is this another attempt to keep me out of the loop?"

"I didn't--"

"Yes, you did," he interrupted her harshly, and her eyes flicked up and met his for the first time straight. "And you would do it again."

She looked away, and he knew that he was right. He also knew that he should step back now, leave her alone. He shouldn't corner her like that. But if he did now what he should, she'd lock him out once more, just like she'd always done, and that would be it.

"One simple question, Ziva: do you _want_ me to help?"

She closed her eyes, and something that looked remarkably close to pain flitted across her face. "It's not that simple," she replied eventually.

"It's a closed question. Yes or no answers only." 

And of course she was right: it wasn't that simple. But the core of it was, the real question here, and they had to settle that one before they could turn it into something more complicated.

"Ziva," he said when she didn't answer, and he saw the minute tremble that ran through her when he said her name like that. Like he had the right to let it roll off his tongue in the way a lover would. "Do you want me to have your back?"

Shallow breaths on her end, gaze still averted. Then, a tiny nod, barely begun before the motion stilled again. "Yes," she murmured under her breath, and it was a shock to find that he actually understood her. That he was close enough to make sense out of a sound that was hardly more than a sigh.

"Then you'll have me," he said and watched in fascination how her skin tightened under the words he breathed quietly against her cheek. "But I swear, if you so much as try to ditch me and do your own thing, I will hunt you down and cuff you, and then I'll drag your ass right back here, no matter how good your excuse is."

She swallowed, then looked at him, his mouth, his angry eyes, and back at his mouth again. "Noted," she forced out, and he nodded and breathed out slowly and stepped away from her then because if he didn't, he would probably do something neither of them was prepared for. And right now, he wasn't entirely sure if he'd grab her to kiss her or to shake some sense into her.

He turned back towards his coffee, and while he listened to her breathing, his shoulders tensed and he had to fight the urge to look at her because if he started that now, there was no telling where things would stop. "Maybe I'd spank you silly, too."

She laughed shakily and pressed a few buttons on the machine. "Maybe I would deserve that."

*** *** ***

When he came back to his desk, he saw her at McGee's side, and just like that, the seething anger raging in his gut was back. Because McGee was the one she brought Nutter Butters, and McGee was the one she kissed on the cheek and said "thank you" to, and McGee, the damn Probie, McGee was the one she'd chosen to have with her in her little web of lies and after-hours activities. And yes, goddammit, he _was_ jealous this time. Not jealous like a scorned lover, really -- jealous of the simple act of trust. Trust she'd given to someone else and not him. Never him.

His mood seemed to radiate off him loudly, and Ziva looked at him with a vaguely guilty expression. Then she snatched her backpack, but before she went off, she stopped in front of his desk for a moment and watched him flip paper so he wouldn't have to acknowledge her presence. Burying himself in a file that consisted mostly of sticky notes and a couple of greasy printouts.

"I will... see you tomorrow," she said eventually, and he raised his eyes, then gave her a sharp nod. Her lips parted, and for a heartbeat he thought she would say something else. In the end, she just mirrored his nod and took off, and maybe it was better this way because now he really wasn't sure how much longer he could keep it together around her. Maybe that was the main reason why he wanted to tire himself out and sleep on the flight. So neither of them would feel the need to search for feeble words and make conversation that would, essentially, lead them nowhere except frustration.

He crammed a few more sticky notes into the folder and then slammed it shut so forcefully that McGee looked at him with a rare frown.

"You should cut her some slack, Tony. She feels bad enough about this." He came over and rummaged through the file cabinet beside Tony's desk, and the sudden proximity didn't help with DiNozzo's mood. The younger agent's words left him suddenly tense and clenching his teeth to bite back the scathing answer that wanted out. 

McGee, his hands buried in the file cabinet, watched him sideways, though, while he waited for a reaction. Sighed eventually. "Seriously. She hated that she couldn't tell you."

And that was the one word that broke things inside him and made him snap. The one moment where his thoughts suddenly stumbled all over another in an outraged blur and left him upset and unsettled on a whole new level. He wasn't sure if the fact that she'd thought she couldn't tell _him_ hurt more... or the fact that, apparently, everyone else _had_ known before him. He just felt white-hot anger wash over him, and just like that, he was ready to hit the nearest wall.

"Oh, is that so, Timmy?" he snarled, and out of the corner of his eye he saw McGee flinch at the unexpectedly sharp sting of his words. "And how did you become an expert on the deep, dark recesses of Special Agent David's mind?" McGee's frown deepened, and yes, he knew. He knew all too well that he should stop right there and retreat. But his own anger's momentum carried him along, and so he got up on his feet and right in McGee's face, and seeing the younger man flinch sent a nauseating rush of satisfaction through him. "Oh, wait, that's right! You're the loyal companion of many a lonely hour! Of course you know all her nasty secrets now, right? She must have told you a ton of them over takeout and beer every night."

"Stop it, Tony."

And yes, he should, really. But that dark, angry part of him that he had to fight too often relished the sudden distress in McGee's voice too much. Because it showed him how close to home his rant had hit, and he couldn't quit while he was winning an argument, could he?

"How does it feel to be the one in the loop suddenly, Timmy? How does it feel to have her talk to you about her deepest secrets? To know stuff no one else does?" 

And just like that, he had broken something else. 

McGee slammed the drawer of the cabinet shut hard, and the bang echoed through the empty squad room nastily. Sudden, vile anger on the Probie's face morphed into something else, something Tony couldn't read, and then back to rage. 

"You wanna know why she really brought me in?" he hissed, and this time it was Tony who shied away from the sudden, unexpected threat. "Because you were right: it _is_ the fastest way to lose your job, your career, and your life. And _I'm_ the one she's willing to sacrifice."

Tony blinked, lips parting. Frowned and stared at the Probie, who looked so grown up all of a sudden, with all these nasty emotions boiling close to the surface. He hadn't seen that often in McGee. Kind of an emotional cold shower, really, and so he couldn't react at first, could just stare at Timmy and try to wrap his mind around those words and how to make sense out of them.

"She told you that?" he asked eventually, and it was funny, really, because half a minute ago he had been ready to shove his fist into the kid's face, but now... now McGee's expression flickered, and all the pent-up anger seeped out of him quietly, compassionately.

McGee shrugged, and the corner of his mouth quirked up in something that was supposed to be a wry smile, but looked more like the face he made whenever he cited an old, well-known fact. "Didn't have to."

And yeah. That was another of these weird little footnotes of life that you only understand ten or twenty years after they happen: the realization that maybe McGee, despite his easy acceptance of the eternal friendzone, deep down inside and well-hidden carried just as big a torch for Ziva David.

Tony took a deep breath and stepped back, and his hands, almost-fists a moment ago, relaxed as if all energy had trickled out of him. He rubbed his face and sighed, and then his gaze flicked back to meet McGee's. "I'm sorry," he said, and he wasn't entirely sure which part of the past few minutes that addressed. 

McGee's attempt at a smile got crooked, but this time it held actual amusement, and that was progress, right? Right. 

"Just bring her home safely and we're good."

"Hey," he replied, and it was weird, really, but suddenly the whole goddamn, awful tension he had carried around for the better part of the day no longer seemed to matter, "I brought her back from the dead, remember?"

"Yeah, well." McGee turned back towards his desk and flopped down in his chair, and it took Tony a moment to realize that he was trying hard to hold back a grin. "I helped, remember?"


End file.
